Morning:
8°c
Ken Livingstone's bid to be re-elected has been hit by new claims of misconduct over his official campaign website.
A Standard investigation reveals that the 2008 website Re-elect Ken was registered in the name of Mark Watts, a senior publicly-paid adviser to the Mayor.
The site gives its registered address as the offices of a design consultancy given more than £260,000 worth of contract work by the Greater London Authority since 2003.
The disclosures add to mounting pressure on Mr Livingstone following claims by Channel 4's Dispatches last night that taxpayer resources were improperly used to fight his 2004 re-election bid.
Our revelations, however, are potentially more damaging for the Mayor because they relate to the current campaign. They also come in the wake of police investigation into the use of money given in grants by the Mayor's London Development Agency to a string of companies linked to another mayoral adviser, Lee Jasper.
The Standard investigation found that three website addresses - londonforken.org, londonforken.org.uk and londonforken.co.uk, all of which link to the same site - were registered to Mr Watts, the Mayor's adviser on climate change.
Mr Watts's mobile phone number is given on the registration and he is shown as the "registrant" - the official owner of the site.
The registrations were made on Friday 13 July 2007 at 11.37am, when Mr Watts, who is paid around £100,000 a year, was working at City Hall. Any involvement with it by Mr Watts during working hours would be a breach of the GLA's strict rules against the use of publicly-funded officials for election campaigning. During his stint as deputy director of the 2004 campaign, Mr Watts resigned from the City Hall payroll. Mr Watts refused to speak directly to the Standard.
He later issued a statement through the Mayor's press office insisting that his status as registered owner of the campaign website was a mistake by Unreal - the company which runs the site. "The use of my name was made in error by the web company who designed and registered the site," he said.
Richard Barnes, Tory group leader in the London Assembly, said: "If Mr Watts wasn't working on the campaign in any capacity, why did the web company use his name and telephone number? How did they even know his number?"
Mr Barnes will today report Mr Watts to the GLA's chief executive, Anthony Mayer, to investigate whether the official has broken the GLA code of conduct. "The worrying things is that this sounds like history repeating itself," said Brian Paddick, the Lib-Dem mayoral candidate.
"Mr Watts's denial may have held water previously, but after putting this together with what Dispatches has been able to discover it would seem that yet again taxpayers' money is being spent on trying to get Ken Livingstone re-elected."
A few days ago, the registered owner of the campaign website was changed to Steve Hart, a union leader and chairman of the Hornsey and Wood Green Labour Party. The 2008 website is a strongly partisan defence of Mr Livingstone's record. But the Standard-has also learned that Unreal itself has been paid at least £75,000 by the GLA in the last 18 months and at least £189,000 since 2003 for contract work.
Unreal has produced branding for a number of GLA events, including the London Freewheel launch involving the Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq - for which she was paid £4,750 then reprimanded for the BBC for breaching its editorial guidelines on political neutrality - the Mayor's Rise antiracism festival, and the DIY Planet Repairs campaign. Unreal also devised the branding for Mr Livingstone's 2004 election campaign, of which Mr Watts was deputy director and website owner.
It also designed the personal website of Harry Barlow, the Mayor's £88,000-a-year communications consultant. During last night's Dispatches programme, Atma Singh, a former adviser to the Mayor, claimed that he and other GLA officials had undertaken fundraising and article-writing for Mr Livingstone's 2004 re-election bid in taxpayers' time. Emails seen by the Standard support the allegation.
City Hall launched a fierce attack on Mr Singh and on the Dispatches reporter, Martin Bright, who is also political editor of the Leftwing New Statesman magazine.
In a press release, the Mayor's office claimed that Mr Singh had started a commercial consultancy while still at the GLA and accused Mr Bright of "slandering" the police. They said they were taking legal advice about the possibility of recovering money they paid Mr Singh to settle his action for unfair dismissal.
Reader views (2)
It stinks.
- William, London, 22/01/2008 15:56
Report abuse
ES 18/12/7 Remember the Mayor added: "I would hate to see you when you are miserable." to Ms Stern
His method hasn't changed much but making it a bit more personal. This is just incredible but I guess this is where it will hurt most citizens.
Just the same as the Labour government for the last 10 or so years.
- Laurent, London UK, 22/01/2008 15:30
Report abuse
